Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Woman steals her gran’s £20k to build garden pub
95-yr-old victim has dementia
A CLEANER nicked her dementiastricken gran’s £20,000 life savings and spent it on creating a bar in her back garden.
Helen Webb, 50, was supposed to be looking after her 95-year-old relative but after taking over her finances she helped herself to all the money in the frail woman’s bank account.
A court heard how Helen’s lorry driver husband, Gary, 45, was “over the moon” after spending £1,250 on a shed to turn into his dream bar in their garden.
They added a fridge, carpets, a jukebox, a sofa and shutters and called it Cooper’s Bar.
A sign saying “Mallorca Happy Hour” greeted visitors. A month after buying the 10ft by 8ft shed, the couple splashed £3,600 of the cash on a two-week holiday to Palma Nova in Mallorca.
Helen admitted two counts of fraud by abuse of position. Her husband denied any wrongdoing but after a two-day trial he was found guilty of two offences of using criminal property.
After telling the jury how Helen withdrew the money from the Skipton Building Society, prosecutor Claire Holmes added that Gary would have known some of this cash was used to pay for the holiday and the shed in 2015.
Miss Holmes told him at Hull crown court: “You didn’t really class it as [the gran’s] money any more, did you, because she was just a shell.”
He replied: “I honestly didn’t know she was stealing any money.”
Gary said his £1,600 monthly wages went into the couple’s joint account and he lived off £40 a week “pocket money” that his wife gave him.
He claimed he had never seen a bank statement.
Referring to the shed, Gary said: “She’s always known I’ve wanted one because I wanted to convert it into a bar.
“She told me we had sufficient funds to do it, and that’s made my day. I was over the moon.”
Gary said he did not know his wife had been stealing from her gran until “police knocked at the door”.
The tearful husband added: “I was shocked, embarrassed, disappointed that she didn’t trust me to tell me what was going on.”
The couple, from Gipsyville, Hull, are due to be sentenced tomorrow.
TO CROOK’S HUSBAND